Afif Safieh's Letters

Mr. Afif Safieh was asked last week by the Guardian supplement G2 to write an open letter to President Bush to be published today Tuesday with other such letters. Mr. Safieh is the Palestinian General Delegate to the United Kingdom and to The Holy See

Dear Mr. President,

I believe, Mr. President, that you are badly advised and poorly surrounded and I sincerely hope that you will unburden yourself of the shallow and belligerent neo-conservative ideology and the delirious Christian fundamentalist theology. As a descendent of the early Christians - who were, by the way, converted Jews- each time I hear the evangelicals, I feel a need to proclaim and defend " the innocence of God". My understanding of the Christian faith is that Christ has never left us and that there is no need to support unquestioningly Israel's territorial appetite to accelerate His return.

Since the end of bipolarity and the mergence of a unipolar international system, I personally believe that nonalignment should be what characterises American foreign policy. America is a fascinating society because it is " a nation of nations". When the American administration sides, in a regional conflict, with one of the belligerent parties, it not only antagonises all the other actors in the region but it also alienates and ghettoises one component of the domestic national social fabric. And in the Middle East, one ought to remember that it is Israel that occupies Palestine and not the other way around.

Mr. President, the perceived collusion between the American and the Israeli agendas has put America on a collusion course with the Arabs and the Muslims. The unresolved Palestinian tragedy is what is poisoning international relations. America gives Israel a lot of aid and, occasionally, some advice. You seem, Mr. President, to have grown accustomed to see Israel take all the aid and leave the advice aside. Many senior Americans have been for long advocating that the administration should link its aid and its advice to "save Israel in spite of itself" (George Ball, among others, since over 3 decades).

We Arabs, have understood that the U.S.A. is committed to Israel's existence. But are you, Sir, committed to its expansions? The Arab world has been unreasonably reasonable. In the Fez summit in 1982, again proposed by the Beirut summit in 2002, all Arab leaders offered the Israeli society a formula for a historical compromise: if you withdraw from the 1967 expansion, we are ready to recognize Israel's existence.

Israeli public opinion should be made to understand that security and peace will result from regional acceptance and not territorial aggrandisement. And we, the Palestinians, are the key to the regional acceptance of Israel. A Palestinian State is not only our right, but it is also a Jewish duty, an Israeli moral obligation, bearing in mind the enormous human price, individual and collective, we have had to pay for the birth of Israel.

In the gloomiest of times, I remain confident that Palestine will resurrect and, as you know Mr. President, we in the Holy Land, we have had some previous experience in Resurrection.

Sincerely,

Afif Emile Safieh

London March 11, 2002

Open Letter
Mr. Dick Cheney
Vice President
U.S.A

Dear Vice President,

On the occasion of your passage in London, to meet with Prime Minister Blair on the way to several Middle Eastern capitals, I wish to draw your attention that for Arab officials and public opinions the unfinished business of international diplomacy is the Arab-Israeli peace process. Ignoring this fact will mean that you are, Mr. Vice President, heading towards multiple double monologues that will deepen the misunderstanding and the mistrust.

The Arab world has no ideological dispute with the U.S.A. At the worst moments of perceived American alignment on the Israeli policies and preferences, we kept having great expectations.
Our belief is that there are two Americas, two political cultures, two historical memories. There is the America of the early settlers who, on discovering the New World, clashed with the indigenous population and almost totally exterminated them. The America that established slavery and had an elastic conception of its frontiers expanding shamelessly at the expense of Mexico. This is the America that Ariel Sharon always seeks an alliance with. When "the shared values" are invoked, it is in this national experience that the common traditions are deeply rooted.
But there is another America. The America of the War of Independence against the colonial power. The America which took the painful decision to undergo a Civil War to abolish slavery. The America of Woodrew Wilson which came the Versailles conference upholding the principle of Self Determination. The America of the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King's dream. It is this America that we Palestinians appeal to and seek an alliance with.

Mr. Vice President, these two Americas do not coincide with Democratic America and Republican America. The two historical memories cross this political divide. George Bush Junior ran for Presidency as a compassionate conservative. In our unipolar international system, if compassion were to be the guiding compass for American foreign policy, the world would be a better place to live in.

During your visit to the area, I sincerely hope you would listen to the Palestinian cry for freedom out of captivity and bondage. Today the situation can be described as follows: Israel cannot terminate the Intifada and the Intifada cannot, by itself, end the occupation. Hence, to bypass the deadly impasse, the need for a credible and dicisive diplomatic initiative.

The Saudi initiative offers a historical window of opportunity. American diplomacy should not allow it to stagnate and whither away in talks about talks, in negotiations of pre-negotiations and in pre-negotiations of negotiations.

Mr Vice President, if the political willingness were there, a territory that was occupied in 1967 in less than 6 days, that territory can also be evacuated in less than 6 days so that the Israelis can rest on the 7th and we could start our fascinating journey in nation-building and economic reconstruction. This will not be the end of History but rather "the end of Pre-History".

Afif Safeih
Palestinian General Delegate to the
United Kingdom and to the Holy See

The Rt Hon Tony Blair M.P.
Prime Minister
London, 11 July, 2003.

Dear Prime Minister

I am writing to you, Prime Minister, a few days before you receive in Downing Street Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to express some grave worries I have concerning the implementation of the Road Map, a document in whose adoption and publication you have played a deservedly recognized and significant role. Mr. Sharon might want to capitalize internationally on his reluctant verbal acceptance of the Road Map while, on the ground, the situation leaves, alas, much to be desired.

The major reason why the Road Map was welcomed in Arab and Palestinian circles was the involvement and the commitment of the international community through the Quartet and the clarity of their expectations, of both sides, who were called upon to undertake precise measures simultaneously and mutually.

It seems to me that the last weeks, on the Israeli side, were far from convincing. Prime Minister Sharon should not be allowed to drag the peace process into the familiar path of the previous oriental bazaar during which successive Israeli governments thought they could get away with setting the ceiling of the possible and the permissible as well as dictating the pace of progress.

I believe, Prime Minister, that your discussions with Mr. Sharon can help pre-empt and prevent a predictable impasse if no external stimulus is injected. The peace process will be again in your debt, Sir, if you were to raise the following issues:

1- The Road map demands that Israel abandons its policy of repeated incursions in Palestinian territories and its practice of targeted killings. Alas, we have witnessed incursions, assassinations with "collateral damage" and massive arrests.
2- The Road map demands that Israel dismantles all the settlements/outposts, authorized and unauthorized, built since March 2001. The Americans have informed the Israeli side that their intelligence-gathering shows 94 such outposts. The Israeli government started, timidly, dismantling less than 10 uninhabited outposts, and have allowed several new ones to crop up. More dangerously, settlement expansion is underway in occupied East Jerusalem in the Beit Iksa and Abu Dis neighbourhoods.
3- The Israeli military check- points continue to suffocate the Palestinian people and strangulate our economy. Paradoxically, the proliferation of those check- points accompanied the peace process triggered by Madrid-Washington and Oslo. The freedom of movement of people and products still awaits its materialisation on the ground.

4- The "Wall" being erected deep in the1967 occupied territories is another issue that needs to be urgently addressed. Already tens of thousands of Palestinian villagers in addition to the city of Qalqylia are trapped by the monstrous and controversial Berlin-like fence. The Israeli political establishment has to become aware that their entire security doctrine is erroneous and counter productive. Security comes not from territorial aggrandizement but from regional acceptance. And we, the Palestinians, are the key to regional acceptance from Morocco to Muscat, from Rabat to Riyadh.

5- The issue of release of prisoners was already mishandled by the Israeli side after Oslo. We kept telling them, and we were not alone, that there should be a massive release of detainees so that every city, village and refugee camp will have cause to celebrate the return back home of loved ones helping to create a new mood, a new atmosphere and shaping a new positive and constructive environment. The Israeli behaviour on that issue is not only unwise, it is simply sadistic.

6- The Road Map calls upon the Israeli government to allow the reopening of the Palestinian institutions that were closed in occupied East Jerusalem. Maintaining and respecting the Status Quo in Religious sites in Jerusalem, is also of capital importance. The breaches that are occurring, with greater frequency the last weeks, on The Holy Sanctuary, seriously threaten to inflame the situation again, in and beyond Palestine.

7- It would be extremely helpful, Prime Minister, if you were to raise with your guest the issue of facilitating the process of voter registration. This will tremendously accelerate the path leading to the second phase of the Road Map which deals with Palestinian elections. Since the publication of the Road Map was unnecessarily delayed, it would be wise to do some catching up. Palestinian presidential, legislative and municipal elections need not be delayed because of acrobatic conditions inflicted on the teams undertaking the indispensable registration of voters.

8- Last but not least, the siege imposed on President Yasser Arafat in what remains of his office in Ramallah. This siege is perceived by the Palestinian people as a collective national insult that mirrors the siege imposed on our entire society. Mr Arafat is the democratically elected President and remains the embodiment of Palestinian legitimacy and the pillar and cement of central authority. Yasser Arafat has always been, in Arab politics and Arab summits, one of the major leaders of the pragmatic school of thought. His freedom of movement regained will be a major factor in the emergence of the perception that the Road Map is not a trap, but a very credible path guided by the international community towards peace and reconciliation.

Please accept, Prime Minister, the expression of my highest consideration.

Afif Safieh